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89% of citizens want them gone – at least among the 7.46% who showed up to vote:
Citizens of Paris voted on Sunday to ban e-scooters from the City of Love, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo responded by promising that the fleets of rechargeable rentables would be gone come September.
The outcome was overwhelming, with 89 percent of votes cast in favor of the ban, though only 103,084 of Paris's 1,382,322 registered voters participated – around 7.5 percent. In a summary of the vote, the Parisian government noted that the final decision on the ban fell to city officials, who didn't appear to plan on countermanding the non-binding outcome.
[...] Only three companies are currently authorized to operate electric scooter fleets in Paris – Lime, Dott and Tier – which were granted three-year contracts in 2020 after Parisians voiced their dissatisfaction with a 2018 rollout in the city. Per Paris's government, the public domain occupancy agreements the three operators have all end on August 31, and it seems Hidalgo doesn't plan to renew them.
Lime and Tier both told The Register they would be ceasing operations in Paris come September 1, though Tier did note its shared e-bike service would still be available in the city.
Both companies expressed disappointment at the outcome, but pointed to the fact that the low voter turnout meant the results weren't representative of the city's entire population. "With approximately 93 percent of citizens not going to the polls, a large majority of Parisians have shown that e-scooters are not an issue," a Tier spokesperson said.
"We acknowledge the result of this unprecedented referendum, which was heavily impacted by very restrictive voting methods. This led to an extremely low turnout, heavily skewed towards older age groups, which has widened the gap between pros and cons," said a spokesperson for Lime.
Lime's response came from a third-party PR firm who said the statement represented a position "shared by Dott, Lime and Tier and not Lime speaking for the industry."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday April 06 2023, @04:40AM (11 children)
Asshole users are. They'd leave scooters on sidewalks, in doorways, pretty much anywhere. Not to mention riding like assholes in the streets and sidewalks. We had the same problem here in San Diego, those damned things were annoying as hell.
Companies need to change their model so their customers, I dunno, have a feeling of ownership or something.
Bad decisions, great stories
(Score: 2, Troll) by darkfeline on Thursday April 06 2023, @05:56AM (4 children)
Everything is a "people problem". Blaming people is just denial that the idea was never viable in the first place. If your idea doesn't work because of people, then your idea doesn't work period.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2023, @06:23AM (2 children)
It might work with a different bunch of people though. So "doesn't work period" is a bit too simplistic.
For example, in some places you don't have to lock your doors (and you might even be OK with your neighbor borrowing stuff). Whereas that would be a bad idea in a different place.
In some places people queue in a fairly orderly and civilized manner and in other places people don't. Does that mean the idea of queuing "doesn't work period"?
In some places you can expect people to NOT be litterbugs, in other places you might as well expect them to be litterbugs.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2023, @12:53PM
Oh yes...I was fortunate enough to have experienced childhood in rural Alabama.
We had a set of ethics which made locks kinda useless. If someone didn't the system, first it explained that one way or the other, either follow the rules or get out of town. One warning was sufficient. Troublemakers just disappeared.
Nobody's stuff got messed with.
Those cartoons...Snuffy Smith...back in the 50's, well it was a pretty good example of how we handled social problems. We could sleep at night, and we could walk alone damn near anywhere, even at midnight, no one would bother us. But everyone knew there were things one knew not to do. One did not practice assholery.
Practicing assholery would make one disappear, and we all knew it. We rarely encountered assholes. Someone would fix the problem. And the rest of us knew that whatever caused all the woe to our neighbor wasn't around anymore to come after us.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday April 06 2023, @11:18PM
You don't speak just of people here! Two things are missing: cultural infrastructure and environment. Consider your above situation. In a place where everyone knows you, stealing stuff from unlocked houses will blow back on you fast and there would be harsh cultural punishments for stealing. In a place where you can move a few miles and disappear, there's far less blowback from theft. And if you're hanging out with a group that steals a lot, then there's no cultural backlash to stealing outside the group.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday April 06 2023, @08:58AM
Remember I don't oppose all regulation, only stuff that causes harm. Banning scooters causes a lot more harm than fining violators.
(Score: 4, Informative) by coolgopher on Thursday April 06 2023, @06:54AM (1 child)
Similar problem here in Melbourne down under. That plus riders with no insurance because Lime & co refuse to cover incidents resulting from the rider doing something unlawful. Which of course end up with innocents getting the short end of the stick [theage.com.au].
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Thursday April 06 2023, @02:24PM
According to the article, they changed their insurance to cover such things now, not that it helps the people who got hurt before the change.
I wonder what other recourse there is, sue the rider and/or lime directly?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Opportunist on Thursday April 06 2023, @09:34AM
I wonder if we're the only ones who found a solution.
There's a "parking space" for them every 200 meters or so across town. At least it feels like this, you pretty much find one at almost every tram and bus station. You enter your phone number, get a pin code that unlocks one of the scooters and then you can use it. That scooter is your responsibility now for the time you use it. Don't return it, pay a fine. Trash it, pay a fine.
It might come as no surprise that this works actually pretty well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2023, @02:44PM
Docked e-bikes make sense but require more investment. Dockless scooters are silly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Thursday April 06 2023, @04:18PM
Also asshole non-users. While I was in France in 2018 I was walking along the promenade in Lyon I saw multiple scooters get hurdled into the river. Apparently the BKM for silencing the beeping cries for help of the scooters is to put them into the drink.
The whole system appears flawed to me. I used to appreciate the concept of ride share bikes, however the concept of littering the streets with them breaks the system. Maybe there is a better model, but I think Paris' ban is a very reasonable approach.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 06 2023, @05:55PM
That's been a problem where I am as well. We had a few incidents of those parked scooters being violently hucked off the sidewalks they were blocking and... ya know... after that particular problem has improved some. I am, of course, speaking strictly anecdotally.
Again, speaking anecdotally, we had exactly this issue when the scooters started showing up. But in the last year or so that seems to have died down. There are still assholes but a lot fewer of them. I think some societal cues do have an effect on improving the safety of these things. A comprehensive effect? No.
This does make me curious about something: In the area of town I'm talking about we're starting to see ground-based delivery drones droiding about slowly on public sidewalks. I dunno if there are enough of these to start becoming a general obstacle for scooters around here, yet...., but it is easy for me to picture an abundance of those things pushing scooters to alternative courses.
During the lockdown several of our neighbors were charging these scooters ... we think they were actually getting paid for it. I actually wondered if the people throwing the scooters off the sidewalks motivated those trying to make money from charging them to start placing them out of the way. Think that'd be a start?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday April 06 2023, @06:59PM (2 children)
Half a dozen or so that collected in the doorway of my business were brought inside the shop and disassembled with a blowtorch and returned to the street to be collected.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2023, @08:27PM (1 child)
Was "killing" those scooters easier than "relocating" them?
Here in the burbs, when we have a ground hog problem (burrowing, destructive rodent) I use a live trap, catch and release far out in the surrounding country. Maybe those scooters would have found a good home as a toy for farm kids, somewhere outside your city?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Thursday April 06 2023, @11:44PM
Yes it was. It was also cathartic.